While I was researching Curcumin, I thought this website was really
cool!!! Students at the Stanford University created a club called HOPES
(Huntington’s Outreach Project for Education, at Stanford). This club is dedicated
to making scientific information on Huntington’s disease (HD) readily
accessible to primarily educate the public on HD, as a reliable source. (https://www.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/wordpress/2010/06/curcumin-the-curry-spice/).
HOPES recognizes Curry (Curcumin; a
turmeric, part of the ginger family) and devotes a whole webpage (updated June
2010). First a comparison of the prevalence of AD between Indian and American
populations is done. It is found that India has 1% of their population over the
age of 65 live with AD and the people between the ages of 70-79 in Inida are
one fourth as likely to develop AD as Americans are. Nevertheless, the diet
intake of Curry is recognizably different between American and Indian
populations, and was studied and discussed. Through recent scientific findings
of how curcumin affects on the nervous system, it is known that curcumin can
help prevent and alleviate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (although they bring up so
uncertainties in the data they referenced). HOPES suggests that since the neurodegeneration
pathway is “strikingly similar” in both AD and HD, than it is fair to say that
Curcumin administration would help alleviate or slow the progression of each
disease due to its natural NSAID-like inhibiting characteristics (decreasing
inflammation and oxidative stress(OS)). Reducing the use of NSAIDs.
The causes between AD and HD are is that HD is genetic and AD is both genetic and environmental. These
neurodegenerate diseases are caused by inflammation and OS leading to nerve cell damage causing
a buildup in beta-amyloid plaque (BAP) in AD and Huntingtin protein aggregation (HTT) in
HD. The Stanford students believe, based on what they know anyways, that any substance that has been shown to
decrease beta-amyloid plaque (BAP) should have a high chance to decrease HTT. They finally conclude,
“However, while this possibility is certainly a source of
intrigue, it is important to note that not all substances that are proven to
decrease [BAP] levels have shown the same effectiveness with [HTT].”
This is where Curcumin comes in the picture. The website is hopeful that someday Curcumin studies on HD will show promise to decrease HTT aggregates, in the meantime they believe Congo Red and thioflavine S have been
effectively shown decrease both BAP and HTT.
Although
I like this idea of student-run website to educate others on HD, but is this
website citing correctly? I just honestly had a hard time believing if
everything is referenced correctly.Would this be considered a reliable and credible source for
correct scientific knowledge? Anyway do you think substances like Curcumin, that have
been shown to treat AD (and Rheumatoid Arthritis), have a shot at
treating a genetis disorder like HD based on its somewhat similar pathology? I
would like to see if any other turmeric has been studied like this? Last but
not least, how and why do other substances like Congo Red and thioflavine S,
have the same physiological abilities as Curcumin?
I Liked this article, because unlike the lay article we read in class about curcumin this article states positives about the substance and lets us know that event though the studies are positive on murine models, it doesn't necessarily relate to human models. Another thing i liked is that they compared the number of people with AD (Alzheimer's Disease) in India, because they had a diet which consisted of curcumin to people in the US and found that they are 1/4 less likely to develop the disease. Not just that they compared the numbers but related it to the fact that it could be related to curcumin (or other Indian foods) or it can be something genetic or environmental that make these people less likely to develop AD. I think it would be interesting to compare an Indian-american population that consistently ingests curcumin to both the Indian community themselves and to other american denominations, that way it could be easier to rule out whether it is due to environmental, food ingestion, or the type of genetics that they have that makes them resistant.
ReplyDeleteYes I think there are many positives that are brought up in this paper. I think this webpage correlates very well with the basic science review held in d2l, titled "anti-inflammatory sp10," this is because they both show that curry is a great preventative measure toward many neurodegeneratatve diseases. I think this Stanford website does shed some light on this by explaining how neurodegenerative disease usually occur by the start of inflammation, then oxidative stress physically damages the nerve cells. Then people grow with more diverse and specific disorders such as AD or HD. The Basic Science article says "The major site of action of these curcumin extracts is thought to be [the] inhibition of transcription factor activation, including activation of NF-κB. NF-κB activation during inflammation leads to increased gene expression of cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β), chemokines (MCP-1) and other inflammatory proteins (COX-2) that are critical mediators of joint inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA)." Which makes sense because if you lower or inhibit the mass production of the actually enzyme that carry a certain mechanism, COX-2 in the like the arachidonic acid-PH2 process, leading to similar arthritis problems in many joints. On the flip side I remember reading that some turmeric delepted oil extracts in the science article had some components that lower our natural ability to lower inflammation.
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